Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from Knowing: The Journey to Certainty in an Uncertain World by Touré Roberts.
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Knowing is your awareness of God, His nature, His nearness, and His unfailing promises. It is the soul’s recognition of God’s character, even when your circumstances seem to contradict it.
But Knowing doesn’t stop there. As we peel back the layers, we see it not only as confidence but as something timeless and more essential. Beneath the steadiness it gives us in hard seasons, there is something even more foundational. Something ancient and alive.
Before Knowing became your anchor, it was your awareness. Before it helped you hold on, it helped you see. Not with your eyes but with your spirit.
This is the Knowing that existed before sight, before sound, before language. It is your first sense. The one you were born with. The quiet, intuitive recognition of God, of safety, of presence, of love, before you had words to name them. This kind of Knowing doesn’t come through logic or education. It’s woven into your being. It’s how your soul recognizes truth without needing proof, whispering, “This is real. This is true. This is God.”
And though we were created with it, we lost touch with it along the way. Life got loud. Pain made us question. Culture taught us to trust our senses, our logic, our plans, but not always our spirit. And so this first sense, the one that once came so naturally, grew faint.
But it’s still there. Waiting. And this chapter is your invitation to return.
The Genesis of Knowing
I believe some of the profoundest truths are hidden in the simplest things. And too often we miss them. We’ve heard the story of creation so many times that it’s easy to skim past it, as if it’s a children’s tale or a poetic prologue to the “real” parts of Scripture. But what if it’s more than that? What if the creation account isn’t just a history lesson but a blueprint? A memory? A mirror?
In the Genesis story, we don’t just see how the world began. We see how we began. And more than that, we see how Knowing began. This first chapter of our human story is about more than light and land and animals. It is about the chemistry and symmetry between God and the ones made in His image. It is about the divine rhythm between creator and creation. It is about intimacy. Clarity. Connection. There was no fear. No shame. No confusion. Only presence. Only love. Only Knowing.
That is where Knowing began. Not as a concept. Not as information. But as communion. Before language, before law, before even need, there was God with us, and we knew him. This was humanity’s original state. Knowing was not learned, it was lived.
When we reflect on the story of creation, we often focus on the poetry of it. The rhythm of the repeated phrase,
God said, ‘Let there be...’ and there was.
We read those lines as if they are simply divine commands, echoing in an empty void, making things happen by force. And in a sense they are. But what we rarely consider is this: Who or what was on the other side of God’s command? There was no audience. No listeners with ears. No witnesses with eyes. And yet there was a response. A happening. A becoming.
The Word was spoken, and creation knew what to do.
That’s the mystery. There was no ear to hear, no brain to analyze, no interpreter nearby. Yet when God spoke, creation responded—not through the five senses but through something deeper. There was a transmission, a direct communion from Spirit to substance.
This pattern is echoed in the physical universe. At the fundamental level, matter responds to energy and frequency. Before there is form, there is resonance. Before there is sight, there is response.
- It’s as if creation, from atoms to oceans, still remembers the sound of His voice.
And the same pattern lives in us. The first thing Adam experienced wasn’t sight or touch; it was the breath of God filling his being (Gen. 2:7). That breath was more than life. It was awareness. Communion. Knowing. Even science nods to this mystery: Long before a newborn opens its eyes, it recognizes familiar voices, rhythms, and tones of love. Awareness precedes observation. We come into the world remembering before we learn.
Little glimpses of that memory still break through. Gentle nudges, sudden clarity, unexplainable peace. Neuroscientists call it intuition, those split-second impressions that seem to know before the mind can think. The heart and brain exchange subtle electrical signals, often registering truth before words form. It’s as though the body itself still carries the echo of that first divine resonance, the residue of the moment God breathed awareness into dust.
And once you notice it, you realize this Knowing never left. It has simply been waiting to be remembered.
To live from this awareness is to see through God’s eyes—to sense abundance where others see absence, and to perceive wholeness where others see lack. It’s the same truth whispered through Scripture since the beginning.
Two passages speak directly to this idea—two of my favorites. And when you look at them through the lens of Knowing, something powerful unfolds.
The first is one we’ve heard countless times:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. — Psalm 23:1
But when you look at the original language, a more accurate rendering is this:
The Lord is my shepherd; I have no lack.
This isn’t just a statement of provision. It’s a statement of perception.
David isn’t saying that his Shepherd gave him everything he ever wanted. He’s saying, “I’m so connected to my Shepherd that I don’t even perceive lack.” There is no anxiety, no scarcity, no chasing. There is trust. There is alignment. There is Knowing. He knows that everything he needs is already accounted for. That’s the power of divine awareness. It changes how you see everything.
Then there’s Psalm 37:4:
Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
We often read this and assume it means, “If I’m good and love God, He’ll give me what I want.” But that’s not what the psalmist is saying. He’s saying this:
When you delight yourself in the Lord, when you build connection with Him, He gives your heart what to desire. He doesn’t just fulfill your desires. He forms them. He plants within you the very longings He intends to fulfill. And because they come from Him, they will always lead to satisfaction.
This is the essence of divine Knowing: You no longer spend your life pursuing things that might fulfill you. You pursue what God has already appointed for you. And that’s why your soul can rest.
I’ve been cultivating this kind of Knowing for a long time. And as we move further into this book, I’ll be sharing many of the practical steps I took to get here. But I can tell you without hesitation: The extraordinary life I’m living now wasn’t built because I’m the most intellectual person in the room. It wasn’t because I came from money or privilege. I had a beautiful, loving family, but we weren’t the Rockefellers. What we lacked in wealth we made up for in love.
It also wasn’t because I had a wall full of degrees, or the perfect pedigree, or a network of powerful connections waiting to open every door. The life I’m living today was built because I’ve spent years learning how to get better at listening—really listening—to what, deep down, I already knew.
That Knowing has guided everything.
- Making business moves that looked risky on the surface but turned out to be divinely timed
- Walking away from relationships that no longer aligned and stepping into new ones that breathed life into me
- Hiring the right people and releasing the wrong ones
- Making bold decisions others didn’t understand, until the fruit began to speak for itself
If I had to sum it up, I’d say this: My entire life has been shaped by one thing: learning to lean in and trust the Knowing.
Excerpted with permission from Knowing: The Journey to Certainty in an Uncertain World by Touré Roberts, copyright Touré Roberts.
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Your Turn
Are you aware of God, His nature, His nearness, and His unfailing promises? If not, lean in today and start to practice listening to that first sense. The Lord is with you! You can trust Him. ~ Devotionals Daily